The Berlin group of Polish Social-Democrats (Rosa
Luxemburg, Tyszka and Co.), which the Polish worker Social-Democrats
emphatically repudiate, is irrepressible. It persists in calling itself the
“Executive Committee” of the Polish Social-Democratic Party, although
there is not a person in the world who can say what this miserable
Executive without a party
“administers”.[1]

The worker Social-Democrats of Warsaw and Lodz declared long ago that
they had dissociated themselves from the aforesaid Berlin group. The State
Duma elections in Warsaw and the insurance campaign in that city revealed
to all that there is only one Social-Democratic organisation in Poland,
namely, the one that has categorically declared it does not recognise the
disruptors and slanderers on the Executive Committee. Of the feats
performed by this Executive it is sufficient to mention one: these people
came out with the unsupported statement that the main bulwark of
the Polish worker Social-Democrats, the Warsaw organisation, was “in the
clutches of the secret police”. A year elapsed, but this Executive
produced no evidence whatever in support of their atrocious charge. This,
of course, was enough in itself to discourage any honest for son, active in
the working-class movement, from having any dealings whatever with the
people in the Tyszka group. As the reader sees, the fighting methods of
these people differ very little from those employed by our Martov, Dan and
Co....

And it is this group of persons, condemned by all the parties
working in Poland, that has now decided to act as the saviour of the
Russian working-class movement.
Rosa Luxemburg has sent to the International Socialist
Bureau[2] a proposal that it should discuss the question of restoring
unity in Russia. One of the motives that she advances for this is that the
“Lenin group”, if you please, is causing disruption in the
Polish Social-Democratic Party.

This statement gives the Berlin group away at once. It is common
knowledge that the Bolsheviks are shoulder to shoulder with the Polish
worker Social-Democrats who have repudiated this group of intriguers. That
fact keeps our notorious Executive awake at nights, and explains its
“unity” campaign, which was opened with attacks on the Russian Marxists
and has the object of supporting the Russian liquidators.

Rosa Luxemburg would never have done this if things were “going
well”. Even her group refused to meet the liquidators at the “August”
reconciliation.

But having lost all significance in the Polish and in the Russian
working-class movement owing to its lack of principles and to its
intrigues, this tiny group of political bankrupts is now clutching at the
liquidators’ coat-tails. It turns out, of course, that the “Lenin group”
is guilty of all mortal sins, and therefore—therefore it is necessary, at
all costs, to amalgamate with it. The old, old story!...

What is essentially the Russian Marxists’ attitude to wards the
proposal that the International Socialist Bureau should investigate the
disagreements among the Russians?

As far as we know, they will be very pleased if the West-European
comrades can be persuaded to investigate the substance of our
controversies. We have heard that the Russian Marxists have, for their
part, sent to the International Socialist Bureau a proposal that it should
also investigate the split in the Polish Social-Democratic Party and the
disgraceful conduct of the Tyszka group towards the genuine workers’
organisations in Poland. The Marxists will be very pleased if the
International Bureau also examines the disagreements between the six and
the seven Duma deputies. This will bring before our foreign comrades the
question of whether the parliamentary group should be subordinate to the
workers’ party, or, on the contrary,
whether the workers’ party should be subordinate to the parliamentary
group.

The Marxists will be still more pleased if Rosa Luxemburg’s proposal
that the question of Russian unity be placed on the agenda of the
International Congress to be held in Vienna in 1914 is accepted.

The new International has twice discussed such questions at its
congresses. The first occasion was in Amsterdam, in 1904, when the question
of unity in France was discussed. The Congress examined the
substance of the controversy between the Guesdists (Marxists) and
Jaurèsists (revisionists) and condemned the line of the
Jaurèsists, condemned their tactics of joining bourgeois Cabinets,
of compromising with the bourgeoisie, etc. And on the basis of this
decision on the substance of the issue it proposed that the
conflicting groups should unite.

The other occasion was in Copenhagen in 1910, when the Czech-Austrian
split was discussed. The Congress again discussed the substance of
the controversy, expressed its opposition to the “Bundist-nationalist”
principles of the Czech separatists, and declared that the trade unions in
a given country should not be organised on a national basis; and
it was on the basis of this settlement of the sub stance of the
controversy that the Congress recommended the two sides to
unite. (Incidentally, the Czech Bundists refused to obey the decision of
the International.)

If the Russian question is brought up at the Vienna Congress there can
be no doubt that the Congress will express an opinion on the importance of
the “underground” in a country like present-day Russia, on the question
as to whether, under present conditions, Marxists should be guided by the
prospects of “evolution” or by the prospects of “uncurtailed”
slogans, etc. At all events, it will not be without interest to hear the
opinion of the International on all these questions....

Unfortunately, however, this is still a long way off. Meanwhile, we
merely have the irate but impotent pronouncement of the Rosa Luxemburg and
Tyszka group in Berlin. We advise Mr. F. D. to make good use of this
pronouncement against the Marxists and in defence of the
liquidators. Although the liquidators’ newspapers reported the disgraceful
exploits of this Berlin group in its struggle against the Polish workers,
Mr. F. D. will not, of course, be able to resist the temptation to drink
also from this ... fresh spring.

But the Russian workers will say: We ourselves will establish
unity in our Russian workers’ organisations. As for feeble intrigues, we
shall simply laugh at them.

Notes

[1]The differences of opinion between the Executive Committee of the
Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania and the Warsaw
organisation, the strongest and most consistently revolutionary Polish
Social-Democratic organisation, arose in 1908 at the Sixth Congress of that
party. The line of behaviour of the Executive
Committee headed by Rosa Luxemburg, L. Tyszka and others was sharply
criticised at the Congress; the Board was criticised for its unprincipled
position in the R.S.D.L.P., for not allowing criticism from the local
organisations, etc. The Congress passed a vote of no confidence in the
Executive.

The Executive, in 1912, announced the dissolution of the War saw
Committee on the grounds of its “schismatic” activities, accused it
falsely of connections with the secret police, and established a new Warsaw
Committee from among its own supporters. From this moment the
Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania was split into two.

Lenin kept track of the struggle within the Polish Social-Democratic
Party. He published a number of articles in both the Russian and Polish
Party press on the split in the Polish Social-Democratic Party and spoke in
the International Socialist Bureau against the attacks of the Executive on
the Warsaw organisation.

The “schismatics” agreed with the tactical line of the Bolsheviks on
a number of points and tried to establish organisational ties with the
Bolsheviks despite their differences on the national question (the
“schismatics” adopted the semi-Menshevik position of Rosa Luxemburg and
her followers). The “schismatics” took part in the Poronin Conference
During the First World War the two divisions of the Polish Social-Democrats
formed a single party with an internationalist platform. In December 1918
the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania together with the Left
elements of the Polish Socialist Party established the Communist Workers’
Party of Poland.

[2]The International Socialist Bureau was the executive body of
the Second International established by a decision, of the Paris Congress
in 1900.